The winner’s roll of the Grade 2 Rebel Stakes should cause any horse racing fan of the last 20 years to do a double-take, followed by the eyebrow-raise and the widening of the eyes.
Smarty Jones (2004), Lawyer Ron (2006), Curlin (2007), Lookin at Lucky (2010), Will Take Charge (2013) and American Pharoah (2015). Go back to the late 20th century and you find Victory Gallop (1998), Pine Bluff (1992) and the event record-holder, Vanlandingham (1984).
Classic champions. Division champions. A Triple Crown winner. And all got to those lofty heights by winning the Rebel.
And we haven’t mentioned the stellar crew that ran, but didn’t win, the Rebel. Horses like Afleet Alex, who won the 2005 Preakness and Belmont Stakes. Improbable, who was the 2020 Horse of the Year. Oxbow the 2013 Preakness winner. And Creator, who won the 2016 Belmont.
The 1 1/16-mile, $1.25 million Rebel Stakes is the third of four Road to the Kentucky Derby stops at Oaklawn Park. It carries 105 qualifying points, with the winner claiming 50 points and likely a gate spot in the May 4 Derby.
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Timberlake Front Runner for Rebel Win
So, who are we looking at to possibly join that gilt-edged group? And what trends can we look for among Rebel winners?
Start with Timberlake. Everyone else is—and why not? The Into Mischief colt is the lone Grade 1 winner in the field, courtesy of his 4 ¼-length victory cruise in the Champagne Stakes last fall. There, he beat eventual Champion 2-Year-Old Fierceness, clocking a field-best 93 Beyer Speed Figure along the way.
The Brad Cox charge owns two victories and a second in five races. His other victory aside from the Champagne came last July at Ellis Park—a 9 ½-length boat race in a maiden special weight race that features one of his Rebel Competitors. That would be Northern Flame, who finished 17 ½ lengths back in fourth.
Timberlake has shown the front-end speed and stalking ability we’ve seen from Rebel winners. He’ll be the morning-line favorite, which bodes well in this race, where single-digit odds runners have found the winner’s circle in seven of the last 10 editions. Favorites claimed only two of those since 2015, with Triple Crown winner American Pharoah being one of the two. Nadal in 2020 was the other.
Both were trained by Bob Baffert, who captured eight Rebel titles since 2010. He’s the dominant conditioner in this event—as he is in many sophomore events. But the Hall of Fame trainer did not send a colt to Arkansas this year. None of his stable are eligible to run in this year’s Derby, due to an extension of his suspension for the late Medina Spirit’s betamethasone positive in the 2021 Derby.
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Lukas Looks for Rebel Win
Speaking of Hall of Fame trainers, this is a good time to mention two-time Rebel winner D. Wayne Lukas, who doesn’t have the endless barns of Triple Crown contenders he had 30 years ago. But Lukas does have Just Steel, who already has nine races on his CV (2-3-1). He’s finished in the money in his last four starts. That includes runners-up finishes in the Grade 3 Southwest Stakes and listed Smarty Jones Stakes—both at Oaklawn.
In both of his Grade 1 outings, however, Just Steel went out fast—and faded faster. He finished sixth in the Breeders’ Futurity last October and seventh in last September’s Hopeful, a race where Timberlake finished second—6 ¼ lengths ahead of Just Steel.
Where Just Steel has an edge over Timberlake is his last race. He ran in this calendar year, whereupon Timberlake hasn’t run since finishing fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile last November 3 at Santa Anita. American Pharoah is the only colt in the last 13 editions of this event to come in and win without a calendar year start.
The other intriguing contender is Northern Flame, who finished fourth in the Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland and fifth in the Grade 3 Street Sense at Churchill Downs. Since then, he wired the field in a January Oaklawn allowance. That broke a three-race, out-of-the-money streak for the Flameaway colt.
Northern Flame broke his maiden at Churchill Downs in a two-turn, 1 1/16-mile maiden special weight. He’s more likely to be a good choice underneath in an exacta or trifecta, which is a good spot to put double-digit odds horses you like here. A look at the recent runners-up reveal Ethereal Road (15.80-1), Hozier (18.80-1), Excession (82.60-1), Sonneteer (112.30-1) and Caleb’s Posse (24.60-1) since 2011.
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